It’s been a long time since I’ve put my thoughts out in the world and have been thinking its better late than never….It’s been quite a year and a half since I last wrote and I couldn’t even begin to say where I should begin!

My knitting has been coming along nicely and while I haven’t fully tackled a new technique or particularly difficult project I am pleased with what knits i have been adding to my life and wardrobe. There were few new pairs of socks (which I wrote about earlier this year) and a fine (but incredibly warm) linen weight scarf, along with a basic sweater!

My project list has a new subject to focus on however and one that I am more than excited about… a baby! My husband and I welcomed home a beautiful little baby girl earlier this year and we cannot be more thrilled! She has been such a joy to watch these first few months and I am still in awe of becoming a mom.

While I will sadly be going back to work very shortly it has gotten me to begin to try to think of ways that I would be able to stay home with my girl while still contributing to our household income. I have always known that I would enjoy staying at home and my maternity leave have truly shown me just how much I love it. However, it is the difficult part of our living in NYC as the cost of living is outrageously high which is what is taking me back to the office. That being said, becoming a stay at home mom has become a bit of a dare for me in seeing if I could make it work. I am by no means saying I am up and quitting my current job today ( I’m not that crazy!, if you’re reading my beautiful supivisor I truly promise to give you fair warning!) but I have been thinking about how a transition from one environment to another could work.

I am pleased to say that I feel my knitting could be a part of this budding plan and one that I plan to explore. If I remember to look back at my archived posts later I believe I had plans to write and publish one of my own patterns. That has been one of my first thoughts of trying to stay at home… come up with and write my own patterns to sell- as I would not be committing all my time to making each piece which would take away time from being mommy… What a great way too to test drive a venture like this as well…

So I raise you readers…. have any of you ventured into self employment?… what were your best decisions in the planning stages that would help another young entrepreneur? And knitters!- what have you found most helpful when it comes to writing, purchasing, or reading patterns?…

So following my last blog post, I finished my Goomy 50 socks! And let me say its love at first sight I mean, wear. I found that as tedious as it was to knit on size 0 needles, I am more than pleased with the outcome and have already started on my next pair! Cannot wait to see how those turn out.

Let’s go back for a minute to my pre and during college days… My dad thought it would be absolutely amazing if I became a sock designer… (insert usual late teen eye roll here…) now whether he was completely serious or not I don’t know but to this day it’s definitely joked about. So when I became serious about my hand knitting of course the comment of my knitting socks came up…

Well let’s say I was easily justifiably (in my mind) not into trying, like, AT ALL. The thought of how you possible turn a heel, create a gusset, I just couldn’t wrap my head around how it would be done- and patterns I even chanced to look at- oh no, it was a foreign language.

Then came the call saying Dad wasn’t well and … I couldn’t figure out fast enough how I was suppose to make a sock.. Six pairs in and he still hasn’t gotten a pair (really dad, yours are coming I promise!!) but I have become enchanted about how easily it is to wip a pair out pretty quickly.

And then…Goomy 50 happened (bottom right hand corner)…

And I couldn’t avoid the size 0 (yes 0!!) needle size… So to avoid actually experiencing second sock syndrome I looked up two at a time socks and I have learned a few things….:

1) casting on is dreadful, cast on separately and bring together once you’ve joined in the round…you just try navigating periously small rows of tiny stitches and tell me it’s easy!

2) that ladder thing everyone talks about- yeah it happens, and it sucks.

3) picking up stitches in the round for two?- yep that’s interesting to, I think I’ve mastered it though since I ripped out my pick ups 3 separate times! (Check this link out, the visuals helped in figuring out the correct technique…)

4) you get interested stares when you knit two at a time on the subway, and yes many will think they are sleeves…

5) the end result…sure, it pretty much blows all those annoying bad points above out of the water… Putting on a pair of hand knit socks is pretty f*cking satisfying.

You know you want to be a sock designer…so pick up your double points and do it…. 😉

I’ts done!- finished, finito! Oh I’m so thrilled with the result! The first of many knits I already have planned for myself was finished about a week and a half ago…

Now, I still have to block but you can believe that I wore this beauty as soon as it was finished. In my defense as well, blocking has not yet been completed because lace blocking wires were recommended to get the proper shape and I did not have any!

So while I’m waiting for these blocking wires to arrive this scarf is mine to wear!

**note that pattern is actually designed for Loft, I substituted and used Shelter instead.

Length of time to complete: about a month, I had another project on my needles at the same time, so maybe only 3 weeks if it had been the only piece I had been working on…

Project Notes: Because I substituted yarns, I actually ended up with more yarn than I needed. Now while my math (worked out with a very helpful employee at Purl Soho) was correctly calculated, out of the 8 skeins purchased, I only needed 6! I would have more than likely used 6 1/2 skeins however when I was 1/3 of the way through the project I realized I was shorting my moss stitch sections by 4 rows (oops!- really, I CAN count though….). This worked to my advantage as I was able to adjust the remaining pattern to accommodate the mistake (which you would never have know about until now….) The remaining yarn is being used up as a little stockinette/ jersey roll beanie (more to come on this!) which is something else I have wanted to make for myself so really this was a win/win.

So I spent a little time last night with my very special squish… That ever growing over-sized pile of yarn that will soon be The Beast #4…

And what I came up with was a very interesting little swatch… Im on the fence about both the brown and lime green fingering that I’ve used to get the Madeline Tosh DK up to weight but I figure I’ll stare at the swatch for a few days to feel it out…

I also spend a few minutes working out a little paper size version of this Beast to start planning out my colorwork and ridge work. Let me just say that trying to get an approximate ratio was difficult, clearly I’ve forgotten some old Junior High/ High School math. And considering I did not even want to google it, I ended up with a pretty good mini blanket….

I’m in no particular rush to complete this blanket, just very excited to work out all the kinks (properly!) and get this on my needles. Speaking of which, I need to make sure that I have long enough circulars..hmmm…..

So I’ve begun some planning on what I’ve dubbed “The Beast; #4″…. And it will be the biggest to date at a whopping 94″ x 106”- measurements fit for a king and his queen (pun entirely intended!). Now while the measurements and the yarn were pretty much no brainers for me for this project, the process of developing the stitch pattern has been something else entirely.
My brain is flooded with so many different ideas and I am accepting that they all cannot fit into this one project, no matter how big the finished piece is going to be! So for now it’s just some sketches and swathes to get my gauge….

After finally finishing all of my holiday knit projects, the next thing up on my agenda was a baby blanket for some friends of ours. While her due date is just a few weeks away, I thought (right after Christmas that is…) I had a week or so to my own self & projects before I had to dive in. Well, that wasn’t the case as the shower invite showed up right before New Years and the shower date set for about 3 weeks later!

I panicked for about a minute, then realized that I had a week off then two working weeks before the shower. So the next day I purchased the yarn and went to work.

**worry free first night with cast on

It was only a few days later when I went to go RSVP that there was no way I would be able to even MAKE it to the shower….uuugggghhhhhh (out of town, hubs working, and train unable to make it to and from the town within a reasonable time to attend…plus the added cost of the ticket..) So well, I was pretty disappointed. But since I already had my gift and the blanket well into work, I decided to ship my gift to be received in time for the big day…

**early progress

…meaning that I lost 3-4 DAYS to finish in time- and I would be back to work….

*two nights prior to my deadline

Can we say TIME CRUNCH! So now as I sit here typing up this post, I have until midnight (its 5:30 pm currently) to finish about 8” worth of blanket along with wrapping EVERYTHING (my gift is more than a blanket!), commute home (about 40-so minutes) and somehow squeeze cooking and eating a dinner…

**UPDATE (following the night before deadline crunch-time!)

I FINISHED!! The last stitch slipped OFF the needles at midnight (ooommmppphhh) and it felt wonderful! About another 40 minutes and all was wrapped and happily packed up to be packaged and shipped Wednesday morning.

I hurried off to Fedex and I will now be thoroughly enjoying a deadline free couple of months.

Now that I have finally finished off all of the knitted things I wanted to make for everyone else, I can finally dedicate some time to knitting something for me…ALL FOR ME!! I purchased the Ludlow from Brooklyn Tweed almost a year ago and had been waiting for the right time to start…

And that time was now!!

**an early progress status…

I also had this strong urge to make something- anything- in BLACK. And I haven’t seemed to be the only one wanting to knit in black. A couple other knitters I follow and know have been drawn to the darker yarns recently… Hello handknit trend..

But anyways..the Ludlow; while the pattern calls to use Brooklyn Tweed’s Loft yarn, I favor their Shelter a little bit more so along with a very friendly and helpful employee in NYC’s Purl Soho, I managed to substitute and work out the math to have the pattern accommodate Shelter.

I am about a third of the way through and could not be more pleased with how it is turning out…

This posting may be a little later than most would expect, but believe it our not my last round of holiday gifting just happened! I know so late! I had a very ambitious year and I actually managed to complete all in a reasonable timeline… the full holiday haul included:

3 (yes 3!) full size blankets

5 different hats (from pre-teen to adult)

3 pairs of fingerless gloves

1 pair of socks

+ handmade tags for all for wrapping

Too ambitious?…nah..I enjoyed every minute of it! Even more enjoyable was the look on my friends and families faces when they realized what I had given them…I most certainly love to gift and when the gift is handmade, there’s more than just a little added love….

My absolute favorite gifting moment was my husband on Christmas morning when he opened up a little box and nestled inside was a new hat and a pair of socks… Immediately it was, “WHAT THE HELL!!, WHEN DID YOU- HOW- WHAT?!”…(TO BE CLEAR: he knew of the countless hours, days, and nights I spent knitting 3 blankets so he couldn’t figure out when I had made HIM new knits….) Can we all remember those first few posts I wrote where I said I was a very big subway knitter..you can complete and hide so many many projects from the hubs! (And for the record..he has been living in those new socks and hat so they were a hit as well!) Within the next hour my parents opened their blanket and his outburst became very very clear…

Also, I would add that the last blanket was finished the weekend following Christmas morning when the 1st blanket was finally opened.. so as to be gifted in time on New Years Day…. yikes! So, how about a look at all the squishy goodness? For your enjoyment:

So I think I will actually be publishing a FREE pattern a little sooner than I thought! I finished my bulk of holiday knitting a week or so ago and decided to cast on a simple little rib hat all for myself. It should have been a quick and painless little basic knit that would help to fill the void in my wardrobe. What SHOULD have been easy turned into frogging the project 3 times!

Im not working from a pattern but knew how to work out how many stitches I needed for my cast on…well the first time around the hat seemed much too big, so I took it out only to realizetry #2 was too small. Try #3 got a little bit bigger but not big enough…

(Same yarn, different filters in each photo)

So now after all my pains to begin this project I will begin again…. To be continued….
UPDATE:
The above post was written about a month ago- since then I ended up making 3 more hats for some young friends of mine for Hannukah along with racing through the last big holiday knit that was on my list (more to that in a separate post!) so this hat has still not seen the light of day… Instead i have been working on a Brooklyn Tweed scarf I have been dying to start and a beautiful baby shower knit…. That’s rotten pattern is still a work in progress too….😂